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August2016

Another ’14 blast from the blast. From Wyatt and Co Host of Punisher Body Count and Dane and Jake get Classy, Dane Lamont.
With Return of Godzilla coming to DVD this September. And the release of the new Toho Godzilla. I’m taking the Kaiju discussions out of the vault. With the hardest (and most popular), battle to date. Godzilla Vs. MechaGodzilla.

We are all together again and Pat has the soundboard on lock this week to troll Michelle. 🙂

Corey revives his crappy cinema segment with just so much awesome including a sharkenstein doing it with a pornstar. Some PoGo talk, Michelle’s weekly Elon Musk stalking update, a new webcomic and Zendaya as MJ Watson.

This week Pat sits down with the incredibly talented writer Eric Palicki.

Eric is the writer of his creator owned books Orphans, Red Angel Dragnet, and Fake Empire, which is being published by Darby Pop Publishing. He has also contributed a story for Marvel’s Guardians of Infinity #6. Eric has also worked with a number of international artists on his books. We also talk about a couple upcoming projects including No Angel, the story he wrote with his sister Adrianne that will be published by Black Mask Studios.

After a while we begin to talk through the current state of comic based movies and TV and just have a bit of fun!

HunnicOutcasts Season III
As we delve into why. Batman V. Superman Dawn of Justice. Wasn’t Hunnic’s cup of “Peach Tea.” You see (I can’t speak for everyone), but Synder. Just doesn’t seem to understand the D.C.E.U. And why I say it’s Pee-Ewe. So I headed back to the D.C.A.U. and pulled The Dark Knight Returns “Out of Retirement.” In an alternate 1980’s Batman has retired. Superman is now an “tool,” of the U.S. Government. And Catwoman is now…? Yeah…we also get the 1st female Robin. So join in on the discussion. As Kendra, Edward, Todd and Hunnic. Explain why this cult classic was good…good enough.

Dave and I are back talking our upcoming con appearances, news of the week and more, we’re also joined by the Basement Beesh Ariel to talk our trip to the Taylor Town Comic Con! A great show as always!

The Adventures of sonic the hedgehog

Original Run: 1993 – 1996

1 season

65 episodes

Primary production Company: DIC

Based On: The Sonic the Hedgehog Game Franchise

What is it?

Clearly seeing the success of Nintendo’s super Mario bros. Super show, Sega decides to get into the world of Saturday Morning cartoons. And seeing as they already have a mascot that’s sarcastic, perfect for slapstick, and whose surreal art style lend itself to low budget low risk animation, Sega orders up a whopping 65 episodes of sonic.

Opening Theme

High energy….at times, maybe a bit too high energy….This thing is out of control. It changes every 3 seconds or so and none of it ever makes any sense….but i’ll be damned if i don’t remember it. The music is definitely based on the actual sonic the hedgehog theme song, but they sample in a lot of other weird songs every now and then to fill in the time slot. A weird choice but it’s still pretty catchy and fun to watch if you don’t mind the chaos. If you waking up to this show on a saturday, it’s sure gonna wake you up quick. The theme mostly consists of multiple attempts to catch sonic or stop him from making a logo. Yeah that fiend. What better way to start a show that trying to thwart….self promotion?

Art design

background aesthetics are…par…i guess? I mean this style of ambiguous surreal background was often used in super mario bros super show, but all kinds of shows lucky enough to be cast in fantasy environments used these as a cost saving measure. That said still, I can’t say they don’t push that a bit much at times as often the line between Surrealism and buildings made out of scribble can get uncomfortably thin.

Character design

Character design fairs quite a bit better. Sonic and his various side characters, consisting mostly of character defining colors that pop out and are easy to identify helps make the transition to animation a good one. As a sonic show should also, the show looks best when it moves fast. And that’s not just because the backgrounds blur out when sonic runs, but the slapstick, action and pace of the show are at it’s best when it’s kinetic and moving from one thing to the next. Robotnik is really the only character complicated enough to need even small changes from the games, but the changes are small at that. When close up, Robotnik’s iconic mustache is more prominent and his overweight egg shape is definitely more clear and frequently used in the slapstick itself. The same can be said for the designs of Scratch and Grounder. While this series definitely does not hide it’s looney tunes influences, rather than the typical cartoon stretch and contort that injured tons do, these characters both being robots means they can sustain substantial physical damage, bust into a pile of bolts, or contort into ridiculous shapes as they try and put each other back together.

Story

Sonic the hedgehog is a resident and sometimes planetary defender of the alien planet mobius. The evil Scientist Dr. Robotnik has hired bounty hunters from all over the galaxy to track Sonic down so he can finally achieve world domination. Also helping in his schemes is the botched results of a ultimate killing machine experiment, a robot chicken named scratch and a talking tank like swiss army mech named grounder. Together, we follow Sonic and Tails adventures chasing bad guys, solving problems of the people, and maybe catching some one liners and chili dogs along the way.

Characters

On the character side however, things start to pick up quite a bit of momentum. Sonic is voiced for the first time by Family Matters’ Jaleel White and despite how gimmicky that sounds at first, it’s become for many the definitive/favorite version of talking sonic. He’s witty, full of himself, and one step shy of annoying asshole. It helps his character a lot that he does show a legitimate interest in helping people, even if he is a bit more begrudgingly when helping is inconvenient for him.

Tales is typical kid sidekick fair all the way down to the whiny attitude and cringe worthy voice. It’s not as bad as most shows by along shot, but it’s the character archetype we’re working with. There’s nothing inherently wrong with tails, but he’s a bit one dimensional. Not that sonic characters are known for their depth, but at times, rather than being the moral compass to Sonic’s rebellious attitude, he can come off a bit like a buzz kill.

Speaking of Cringe Worthy Voices….Oh my god….Scratch and Grounder…by far the two most divisive character in this show, this duo is nails on a chalkboard, loud in your face, and absurdly annoying….And I love them. Despite the annoying voices being a step too far for some people, and i don’t blame you one bit, the chemistry they share is actually really good and the writers have a lot more fun with them than most generic henchmen. They may be abrasive, but they are memorable, unique, and often get the best jokes and plotlines in the series.

Robotnik himself steers more towards typical sneering evil, but the comedic differences between his evil controlled mannerisms and his flabbergasted by sonic slapstick ones keep him entertaining. He carries himself almost exclusively on how badass he thinks he is. Every sentence out of his mouth is congratulating himself on being himself. It’s almost endearing how much toxic self confidence he has in himself. And it’s that same overabundance of self pride that makes it that much funnier when it all comes crashing down in a blaze of blue spiny glory.

The remainder of the characters talk in your typical wacky cartoony borderline annoying fashion. Not to scratch and grounder levels, but traditional talent is not the words i’d use. To be honest though, if this style of over the top cartoon acting was a deal breaker for you, you might be in the wrong book.

Music and sound design

Music for the show is definitely a major positive, in particular, Character themes. Sonic already had one from the games, but the theme they gave Robotnik is a great earworm. Just serious enough to be intimidating, but goofy enough to fit the tone of the show. The show itself has good music overall, but like many of these shows, a lot of tracks are reused several times. It’s not something you’re going to notice unless you watch a lot, but if you’re already watching that many episodes, you likely don’t care.

anything else of note?:

Sonic the hedgehog is far from a groundbreaking show. In fact, when you look carefully, it borrows heavily from quite a few cartoons. Lucky for it, it borrows from some really good ones. Right off the bat, sonic being a super fast character, they realize that working of a coyote and Roadrunner aesthetic works really well for them, especially because Robotic is already an inventor. on top of that, Sonic’s frequent use of Funny voice and random costume gags, although used in all sorts of shows, feels closest to that of Bugs Bunny. Even Sonics obsession with chilli dogs, while to their credit, ended up becoming a staple in the later game series, seemed like it was in direct response to the abundant pasta puns in the above mentioned mario Sat AM cartoon.

I’d also be remiss if i didn’t at least discuss the Sonic Says segments. While this was far from the only show to have these kind of closers, Sonic’s were famous/infamous for just how bizarre some of them got. Most of them were standard stuff like washing your hands, what to do in a fire, listen to your parents, but some got plain goofy like moss grows north, which isn’t true, you can always trust a sloth…..OK…..but also sometimes they were misleading. Thier don’t call 911 episode was incredibly misleading as it almost accidentally says not to call the police if you get mugged. On top of that, as i’m sure their heart was in the right place, their meme inducing episode on sexual Stranger danger may not have been the right venue to discuss that topic.

The Good:

Great character design

Clever interpretation of source material

Interesting week to week plotlines

Great slapstick and character interactions

music and sound design

The Bad:

Set design and non character animation quality

Reused audio tracks

No consistent supporting cast

Scratch and Grounder will be too much for some viewers

Possibly lays on the Loony tunes homage a little thick

Final Verdict

The adventures of Sonic is a very mixed bag, but a show that I happen to enjoy. I’m not denying your result may very, but it’s a show that good and bad balances about 50/50. In many ways, it’s one of the very best in a format of cheap cartoons that are often very bad. The lucky part for you is that although most people are content only watching one episode, most episodes are of the same approximate quality, so while the pilot is actually really good, feel free to jump around to whatever episode premise strikes your fancy. The best thing i can tell you is i’ve tried my best to point out any of the deal breakers to the best of my ability. If nothing bothers you from that, i’d recommend try at least one episode.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars worth a watch.

Guilty pleasure seal of approval*

*The Guilty pleasure seal of approval is an acknowledgement that the show in question borders on or is clearly in Guilty pleasure status. This differentiation is made not to dismiss the merits of a show, but rather to allow the rating system to work better with such a wide variety of genres.

TL DR: it’s a reminder that i rate shows on both quality and enjoyability. Interpret that as you may.

Due to some personal issues we are going back to the archives this week just to be sure we get an episode out to you on time!

This is our first attempt at having a guest on the show. We actually landed a pretty big name, Ryan Stegman! This was literally days before the announcement came that he would be working on Superior Spiderman and he hints at a new dream project that he will be working on.

I like going back to these episodes and seeing where we started and just how much we haven’t gotten any better. 😉

Amazon’s The Tick, part of the new Pilot Season Program, is one of three shows now available on Amazon Prime Video. The Pilot Season Program offers viewers the option to take a five to ten minute survey which will help determine if the show will be picked up as a full series. The other two shows star Jean Claude Van Dam and Kevin Bacon and weren’t unwatchable. However, in a world where capes and cowls have taken over. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Tick does get a full season.

This is the third T.V. series starring the Big Blue Bug. The first was an animated series that aired on Fox Kids in the mid 90’s. Another was a live action show that starred Patrick Warburton and aired on Fox in the early 2000’s. In my opinion one was a cult series(animated) and one was forgettable(liv e action).The live action series did have a cult following, but between it being too expensive, the lack of on screen chemistry, and poor writing the show didn’t have much of a chance for success. I’m glad that the live action is getting a second chance.

Fans had rejoiced until they heard that Patrick would only return as a producer. I enjoyed Peter Serafinowicz’s performance a lot more than Warburton’s. Granted voice actor Townsend Coleman “is” The Tick, but Peter is no slouch. He comes off as Adam West from Batman ’66 meets Moose from Archie Comics. He still keeps his unconstrained bliss. Charging into battle and swaying at the bad guys like they’re nothing. The Tick is still invincible and that is fine.

Arthur is now being portrayed by Griffin Newman. As a boy, Arthur witnessed The Terror, portrayed marvelously by Jackie Earle Haley, slaughter his childhood heroes. This is probably the best live action version of these characters that I have ever seen. Now if you did purchase The Tick live action DVD you did pick up the lost episode featuring The Terror, but the less it’s brought up the better. Here Jackie brings his classic creepy and funny at the same time. It’s a nice balance of how Arthur just wanted to enjoy his FroYo only to have The Terror come out of nowhere to wreak havoc. I don’t want to go into full details of how The Terror and future crime fighter meet besides to say it is terrifying.

Arthur still thinking that evil is still afoot heads over to the docks at night. He is listening in on criminals that have stolen, what will soon be Arthur’s famous Moth Costume. Griffin is actually the main star of this episode which is not a bad idea at all. In the cartoon, Arthur found the costume in a trashcan. Outside his apartment, and never wanted to take it off. Claiming that his life as an accountant was getting boring

In the cartoon and live action series Arthur unfortunately became a wet blanket rather quickly. He regretted finding the costume and becoming The Tick’s sidekick and became whiny and neurotic fast. In this universe, Arthur is a delight. Far from being a wet blanket. Granted he’s not ready to fight crime yet. Fans can’t wait for him to put on the costume and there is some controversy on how Big Blue and Moth will unite. Again I don’t want to give away too much, but there is “potential chemistry” with these two; more than I have seen in the past.

The Verdict

This version of The Tick is Alan Moore’s WatchMen meets Mark Milliar’s Kick Ass. It’s both light and dark. Making the balance between the two work rather well. People do die in this episode and they don’t sugar coat it in any way. Then a comedic moment will occur, but it doesn’t stink up the room. The Tick is still The Big Blue Brute, with a tiny brain and good intentions. Arthur has more meat to him. And as for The City, which has always been named The City. It has never looked better.

The reviews have been mixed, but with some three to five star ratings on Amazon.Com as well as IMDB and the “cliffhanger” ending. We haven’t seen the last of The Tick and Arthur.

This is the 3rd and final Rebirth of Mothra film. It’s actually is the most entertaining. Dealing with kids (again), being the main focus of the film. We also get different stages of Mothra…and well. Just as the series was getting good…

The Thought/s and Opinion/s are that of the individual host/s. They do not reflect Hunnicoutcast/Skirt Productions.